The conference will be held at the Mälardalen University located in the city of Västerås (about 100 km from the capital, Stockholm), Sweden. Västerås is a part of the Stockholm-Mälaren Region. The location has fast links to Stockholm by car or train. During weekdays there are two trains an hour between Västerås and Stockholm, and the journey takes a mere 50 minutes. Engineering has played a major role in the city for many years, mainly through ABB at Västerås with about 5,000 employees.

ABB plant tour
ABB is a global leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve their performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in around 100 countries and employs about 108,000 people. ABB AB (Sweden) employs 9,000 people in Sweden and has operations in 30 different locations. In Sweden the company is a leading supplier of products and systems for power transmission as well as for process and industrial employs automation. Västerås with about 5,000 employees and Ludvika with about 2,400 are the two largest centers of operation. Through its ten Business Centers in the country ABB has increased its customer value thanks to this local presence.

ENA Energi plant tour
A plant tour will be organized by the conference to visit ENA Energi AB, a 100% biomass-fueled combined heat and power plant, located at Enköping. The city of Enköping is located between Stockholm and Västerås and has a population of 38,400 inhabitants with 1200 square kilometers with 46 % farming and 38 % forests land. The ENAE cogeneration plant has a capacity to produce 24 MW of electricity and 55 MW of heat including flue gas condensation for district heating for most of the inhabitants in the city. Fuel for the plant mainly comes from forest logging, saw dust from sawmills and paper industry residues. About 350 GWh/year of biofuel is supplied to the plant. The unique feature of ENAE is that about 10 percent is self-produced energy forest which integrates sludge from sewage treatment plant and ash for the cultivation. The dedicated energy crops absorb the nitrogen with contribution to nitrogen-emissions reduction by 20 ton/year, which otherwise would have contributed to the eutrophication of the Baltic Sea.

Mälarenergi plant tour
Mälarenergi is a regional multi utility providing Heat, Electricity, Water & Sewage and high speed communication to the city. The energy production includes 41 small hydro power stations, and some small heating plants for district heating. The main part of the production is at the Combined Heat and Power plant in Västerås, which provides City and surrounding areas with District Heating and provides electricity to the national grid, with a peak capacity of approximately 550 MWe.

Växkraft biogas plant tour
In the Växtkraft project biogas is produced from the organic waste generated by the citizens in the region around Västerås, from ley crop grown by local farmers and from grease trap removal sludge from the restaurants and institutional kitchens. The biogas is used to power the city busses, waste collecting vehicles and cars. The nutrients and carbon in the solid and liquid digestate are returned to the farmers who receive a high quality fertilizer for organic farming.